EDINBURGH 2009: DAN ANTOPOLSKI - 'SILENT BUT DEADLY'
We’ve all been kids and some of us father them - if you trust the blood-test guy, he was smoking in a lab and his english was poor - but whatever. Wouldn’t it be amazing if someone who wasn’t a bell-end was prepared to talk about parenthood? Dream on, suckers. Bell-end and triple-Perrier Award nominee DAN ANTOPOLSKI adds his meditations on the noble estate of fathership to this festival of dreams. Many other topics will also be covered. Raps will be performed. An unpublishable novel! One-liners! Several-liners! Seriously, can you take another hour of warm, alarming standup from this hilarious white?* Ingredients include come-hither eyes, go-hence nose and stay-where-you-are cheeks. Farts funny? Check. Death funny? Check. Let’s goooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Let’s goo.
Edinburgh veteran DAN rose to prominence at the turn of the Millennium, winning the BBC New Comedy Award and racking up a Perrier Best Newcomer Award nomination and a Perrier Award nomination for his first two solo shows. He also shared a Perrier Award nomination with LEE MACK and CATHERINE TATE for sketch show Lee Mack’s New Bits. Then he decided that he had enough perspex statuettes, they are heavy and not real glass. So he formed The Dinks with CRAIG CAMPBELL and TONY LAW, played Jeffers in two series of BBC TWO’s Hyperdrive and Jesus in Hollywood blockbuster The Da Vinci Code. He did six series of BBC Radio 2’s Out To Lunch and three series of ITV2’s Comedy Cuts. He co-starred with KARL THEOBALD in sitcom Exterminating Angels on BBC Radio 4 and in Moonmonkeys on BBC THREE. Then he went away and made two babies, Alpha and Beta - and began preparing them for the rise of the machines. He returned to Edinburgh in 2008 with his fifth solo show, the acclaimed Dan Antopolski’s Penetrating Gaze.
* Yes? Come to the Ace Dome at 21:20 and watch this enfant terrapin attempt to preserve his sacred puerility in the face of encroaching maturicock.
* No? Then our business is concluded for now. Good luck with your choices.
ends
What the press has said about Dan Antopolski
“Innovative, truth-seeking, weirdly magical stuff…satisfyingly unorthodox, intelligent and ridiculously playful.” The List
“An intriguing hour of intellect-tickling comedy.” Sunday Herald
View the acclaimed sandwich rap from last year’s show here:
LISTINGS INFORMATION
Venue: Pleasance Ace Dome
Date: 5th - 31st August 2009
Time: 21:20
Box Office: 0131 556 6550
WHAT THE PRESS SAID ABOUT DAN ANTOPOLSKI’S PENETRATING GAZE
“Dan Antopolski returns with more of his brainy brilliance…Satisfyingly unorthodox, intelligent and ridiculously playful. Thank heaven - with special thanks also to hell - for Dan Antopolski.” Claire Sawers, The List
“His sandwich rap and another intentionally racist one, brilliantly qualified to the point of acceptability, are solid gold, while his closing rhymes, explicitly dissing his babies, are destined to become one of this Festival's unequivocal highlights.” Jay Richardson, The Scotsman
“Antopolski has funny bones. One of his pauses contains more loaded humour than most carefully written routines. His tales and raps are twisted and clever.” Stephen Armstrong, The Sunday Times
“He certainly hits his quota of inventively silly lines in this hour, especially the first half of it, with a generous handful of lines you’ll be itching to try out on your friends. And the rap about sandwiches is inspired, if bizarre. It’s infantile, but it’s funny. Welcome back, Dan.” Steve Bennett, Chortle
“He can still completely disarm with seemingly bizarre observations, and when the set pieces hit, they really do pack a punch.” Nadine McBay, Metro
“From the moment Dan Antopolski charges on stage wearing a cape, don't expect to be allowed to pause for thought at any point over the course of the next hour. The show comprises not only jokes, but bizarre one-man dialogues and three raps, the one about sandwiches being the perfect candidate for bringing rhyming comedy back into fashion. Even if you're not a great fan of Dan's surreal brand of humour, his mastery of the English language is worth a Fringe show in itself.” James Murray, Three Weeks
“Dan’s back and in cracking form. His material is fresh, funny and delivered at a hectic pace. Unpredictability and the trademark gaze keep the audience engrossed. He flits from topic to topic without wasting time on contrived links… With his return he will give pleasure to those who enjoyed his shows in previous years, and also attract a new generation to his brand of comedy.” one4review
FURTHER PRAISE FOR DAN ANTOPOLSKI:
“Some of the best material at the festival, a winning mixture of groanworthy music-hall puns with intellectual subjects, with the odd sick joke for garnish. His forte is the delayed drop punchline, the sort of gag that takes you a beat or two to get, but feel happy that you were bright enough to figure it out.” Steve Bennett, Chortle
“The audience hangs off his every nuance - verbal and physical - while, like an intellectual Harry Hill, he piles up the asides and non sequiturs fast and furious in between. A magnificently febrile mind.” Nick Awde, The Stage
“Risky, surreal genius one expects from Antopolski at his best… a wildly original talent worth checking out.” Struan MacKenzie, Edinburgh Evening News
“An intriguing hour of intellect-tickling comedy… Switching between disarmingly improvisational riffing on the personal details of audience members (his mental sharpness camouflaged by a blurting, swaying stage presence) and unashamedly educated tramline set pieces, Antopolski occasionally invites comparisons with the equally highbrow but slightly more pessimistic David Baddiel.” Graeme Virtue, Sunday Herald
“You're unlikely to see a slicker, more self-assured performer at Edinburgh this year than Dan Antopolski… For sheer fertility of imagination, there are still few who can match him.” Daily Telegraph
“A confident, engaging delivery and good old-fashioned ability to think on his feet …trades in anecdotes that develop into wonderfully convoluted and surreal flights of fancy with echoes of Paul Merton's early television series, building up to sentences that you are guaranteed never to hear again for the rest of your life: 'If Ann Widdecombe and I are still talking current affairs it's a bit early in the evening for my erection to be appropriate - thanks, Orinoco.'“ Stephanie Merritt, The Observer
“Literary and infantile gags abound…his avant garde approach to stand-up is one you won’t easily forget.” Camilla Pia, The Scotsman
AVALON PROMOTIONS
Avalon Promotions Limited is one of the leading promoters of live comedy in the UK. Productions include: NEWMAN & BADDIEL in the first comedy show ever to be staged at Wembley Arena; FRANK SKINNER’s record-breaking performance to an audience of 6,000 at the Battersea Power Station; Jerry Springer - The Opera at the National Theatre, at the Cambridge Theatre in London’s West End, on national tour and at New York’s Carnegie Hall; HARRY HILL at the Palace and Dominion Theatres in London; and Dave Gorman’s Googlewhack Adventure at the Sydney Opera House, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, on national tour and at the Village Theatre, New York (nominated for Drama Desk Award 2004).
The last 12 months has seen Avalon Promotions: present multi-award winning comics JENNY ECLAIR, RICHARD HERRING, RUSSELL HOWARD and FRANK SKINNER on sell-out runs; produce AL MURRAY, THE PUB LANDLORD live at the O2 and RUSSELL HOWARD at Wembley Arena; introduce some of the fastest-rising stars in comedy such as RUSSELL KANE, KRISTEN SCHAAL & KURT BRAUNOHLER and ISY SUTTIE; produce stage shows, such as Frank Skinner’s Credit Crunch Cabaret and Grumpy Old Women Live, which has toured the UK three times and performed a highly successful run in Australia; and present 23 acts at the Edinburgh Festival, where it has promoted a total of five Perrier Award winners and 17 Perrier Award/if.comedy Award nominees in just 20 years.
